The ladies, accompanied by Mr. Temple, and by Count Altenberg, went out to walk. Mr. Percy stayed one moment to express his sense of the extraordinary politeness and kindness with which Lord Oldborough had honoured him and his family.
“You owe me no thanks, my dear sir. Kindness can be repaid only by kindness. It is a species of debt, which in the course of my life I have seldom been called upon to pay.”
This was said not in a voice either of sentiment or of compliment, but rather in an austere tone, and with a stern countenance of conquered emotion. Without looking at Mr. Percy, he received and answered the farewell shake of the hand; his lips were instantly after strongly compressed; and, taking up his pen, the man was again absorbed in the minister.
Mr. Percy joined the party who were going to walk in the park. Count Altenberg had been unusually silent in Lord Oldborough’s company: with the becoming deference of a young man, in the presence of one superior in age, and in high station, he had listened, eager to learn, instead of impatient to talk. Attention of course now turned upon him, as the stranger and the foreigner.
With the same perfect taste and good-breeding with which he knew how to pay honour due, he received it, and appeared as much at his ease, whether he was in the shade or the light, whether he was unnoticed or the object of general attention. He had that air of self-possession, which characterizes a person secure of his own resources, and not afraid to produce his abilities.
The conversation turned at first upon the beauties of nature—Clermont-park was one of the really magnificent places in England which an Englishman may feel proud to show to a foreigner.
Count Altenberg politely and justly observed how different the country seats of our nobility are from the ruinous and comfortless chateaux of most of the French nobility.
Clermont-park, however, was not new to the count. Commissioner Falconer had the day after his arrival shown him every thing that was to be seen: his attention, therefore, as they pursued their walk, was not so much distracted by external objects as to prevent him from wishing to converse. Finding that Mr. Percy had travelled, he spoke of Switzerland and Italy; and, without any of the jargon of a connoisseur, showed that he felt with sensibility and enthusiasm the beautiful and sublime. It soon appeared that he had seen various countries, not merely with the eye of a painter and a poet, but of a philosophical traveller, who can allow for the differences of national taste, and discern how its variations are influenced by climate, education, government, and local circumstances. In his rapid panorama of foreign countries, he showed variety of knowledge, and without illiberal prejudice against any nation, an amiable predilection for his native country. Next to his own country he preferred England, which, as he said, by the mother’s side, he might call his own. She had early instilled into him an admiration for our free constitution, and a love of our domestic habits; but he had never before visited this country, and he was particularly desirous to obtain an accurate knowledge of England, and of the manners and modes of life of its inhabitants. He seemed thus eager to obtain information, not merely to gratify a cursory or selfish curiosity, but with a view to the future, and with a hope of doing permanent good. It was clear that he was not only a philosophical but a benevolent traveller, to whom nothing that concerns his fellow-creatures is foreign or indifferent. His treasuring up all he had seen abroad, that could be useful at home, reminded Caroline of Colonel Hungerford; but she observed that Count Altenberg’s views were more enlarged; he was unbiassed by professional habits; his sphere of action was higher; heir to extensive property, with all the foreign rights of territorial dominion hereditarily his; and with a probability of obtaining the political power of ministerial station; plans, which in other circumstances might have been romantic, with Count Altenberg’s prospects and abilities, were within the bounds of sound judgment and actual practicability. But whatever these intentions might be, they were only to be inferred from his conversation; he scarcely spoke of himself, or of his own designs; whatever he was led to say on such subjects, he seemed, immediately after he had said it, to feel as an impropriety, not justified by the slight interest which the acquaintance of a few hours could inspire.
He changed the conversation by asking some questions about a celebrated English writer. In return for the information Mr. Percy gave him, he spoke of some recent foreign publications—related several anecdotes of literary foreigners. His anecdotes were interesting, because, in each, there was something characteristic of the individual, or illustrative of some general principle of human nature. To gratify Mr. Percy, the Count spoke of some public events of which he had had means of obtaining information. He had not neglected any of the opportunities he enjoyed, and whether he talked of civil or military affairs, he showed the same efficient knowledge, and the same superior ability.
Caroline, leaning on her father’s arm, listened with a countenance full of intelligence, animation, and sympathy; she looked alternately at the Count and at her father, whose satisfaction she saw and enjoyed. Feeling that he was appreciated by the father, inspired by the charms of the daughter, and excited by the idea he had formed of her character, Count Altenberg had indeed been uncommonly agreeable, entertaining, and eloquent. During this walk, though Caroline said but little, yet that little, to a man of the Count’s discernment, was sufficient to show good judgment and great capacity. This increased the admiration and interest which her beauty and manners, and all he had heard of her conduct, created.